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After a few moments' pause, the workers opened the dams again--this time at full force. Foaming white water stampeded over the edge, still smelling of chemicals.

Nolaa Tarkona raised her clawed hands, and all the Chromans cheered wildly, welcoming her as their savior. She would do her best to live up to that expectation, no matter what it might take.

ON THE PLAGUE-RIDDEN colony world of Gammalin, Boba Fett strode from the doorway, extending his blaster as he approached his captive.

Zekk could read no expression on the helmet-encased face, but he sensed a tension and a wariness in the bounty hunter's movements. Fett stalked forward, as dangerous as a tightly coiled spring.

"I recognized your ship as it flew over," Boba Fett said. "You are the one who fired on me in the Alderaan rubble field." He paused.

"Few have shot at me and lived."

Zekk knew his own expression must be murky and inscrutable behind the faceplate of his environment suit. "You were trying to kill my friends. I only defended them."

Boba Fett stood straight, as if taken aback. He raised his blaster pistol a little, slightly off target from Zekk. "Then you fired upon me with honor," he said. "Understandable."

Zekk couldn't believe what he was hearing, but through his Force senses he could tell that Fett was sincere. He took a gamble.

"I wasn't trying to steal your bounty, you know. I'm a bounty hunter, too," he said boldly. "I'm still in training... but I have my first assignment."

"And is your assignment the same as mine?" he said. "To find Bornan Thul?

If so, we are rivals."

Zekk chose the safest response, while still answering truthfully.

"No, I got my assignment from a three-armed bartender on Borgo Prime.

Droql told me to find one of his scavengers, Fonterrat, who supposedly came to this colony. Unfortunately, it looks like my lead was a dead end that is, it looks as if everyone is dead."

Fett snapped up his blaster pistol, then holstered it. "Your mission does not conflict with mine. No bounty hunter may kill another on a hunt unless they are direct rivals Bounty Hunters Creed. I will not harm you."

"Then why did you shoot at me?" Zekk asked. Gradually he lowered his hands from his gesture of surrender.

"Had I truly intended to hit you, I would have succeeded," Boba Fett said.

Zekk shuffled his booted feet, uncomfortable to be surrounded by one deadly bounty hunter and hundreds of unburied colonists killed by some unknown disease.

"So... do we go our separate ways then?

I need to find information about my bounty."

Fett marched up to Zekk. "No. We stay together. There is little enough to search in this town, and either of us might find valuable information."

"Aren't you afraid of catching the plague through your helmet?" Zekk said.

"My sensors indicate that the plague organism has died out," Fett answered. "I deduce that the strain was fast-burning and short-lived."

Zekk didn't question the statement. "In any case, my helmet is airtight."

They sought out the spaceport's traffic control tower on the assumption that travel records might help them to unravel the mystery of the last days of Gammalin.

Since the turbolifts were inoperable, they climbed the clanging metal steps to the peak of the tower.

Giant windows cut into the walls of the circular chamber alternated with dead gray computer screens that had once displayed flight paths. Three bodies clad in rough uniforms sat slumped on chairs, gray-skinned and covered with the green and blue plague blotches. Imagining the stench of death inside that hot, enclosed chamber, - Zekk was glad he had kept his suit helmet on.

Boba Fett nonchalantly yanked a body out of one chair as if it were no more than dirty laundry, then seated himself in front of a terminal. Zekk took his position at another screen, happy to see that the backup systems and the power grid remained functional. After a rapid search, he began to download the last few files in the logbooks.

Silently, Fett searched for